MCCBD 2018 Co-Hosts
Planning is underway for Multicultural Children’s Book Day (MCCBD) 2018 and Co-Founders Valarie from Jump Into a Book and Mia from PragmaticMom initiated a very special task for a select group of established bloggers.
The following list is a select group of bloggers who will assist in extending the reach and spreading the word of Multicultural Children’s Book Day. These 16 sites will also house the wildly-popular book review/blog post link-up the week of the event. We would appreciate if you could take a few minutes and visit each of these excellent blogs. These women were selected by the MCCBD team because of their true dedication to supporting diversity in children’s literature.
A Crafty Arab: Kay Tarapolsi is a Libyan American artist who creates art to promote a positive image of Arab culture. Kay creates handmade Arab, Fa
rsi and Urdu crafts and cards. Check out her wares on Zibbet (www.ACraftyArab.zibbet.com), Amazon, Etsy or select stores in Seattle, WA, Dearborn, MI, and Washington, DC. The Arabic Alphabet Animal Poster became an idea back in 2002 when Kay received an alphabet poster (in English) by Jill M. Schmidt, a published illustrator of children’s books. Kay realized there was a need for an Arabic poster that was bright, fun and colorful and began working with Jill in 2010 to create this product line. Kay teaches Arab art education to various schools in the Pacific Northwest and has been an artist in resident in several summer camps.
Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, G+
Leanna is a stay at home mother to two sweet, funny, rambunctious boys and a sweet baby girl! Sh
e draws inspiration from the Writings of the Bahá’í Faith and tries to raise her Monkeys in a fun, spiritual, loving environment. She and her husband, who is from Costa Rica, are raising their boys to be bilingual and bicultural but more importantly to be “world citizens.” All Done Monkey is dedicated to sharing this journey with you! All Done Monkey focuses on multiculturalism, children’s education, natural parenting, and spiritual education.
Leanna is the co-founder of Bahá’í Mom Blogs and founder of Multicultural Kid Blogs.
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, G+
I’m Rebekah. Mommy, kidlit nut, social justice crusader, and your companion on the journey to raising little global citizens who are ready to change the world. From deciding I could found a worker rights nonprofit when I was fresh out of seminary, to helping my 5 year old write a letter to our Senator about ending deportations, I’ve always had this crazy idea that my life could be aligned with my purpose. I believe that as parents, we have a purpose that’s even bigger than helping our kids become successful.
We can help kids discover how to make our world a compassionate and fair place for every child on this planet. We can show them how to become Justice Kiddos.
Bethany Edwards is an elementary educator and reading specialist. She has taught in the U.S. as well as international schools in 5 different countries. Her goal is to help parents and educators teach children to read using multicultural and diverse books, culturally rich experiences, and learning multiple languages.
Books My Kids Read – Michelle is a parent of two girls and a lover of all things children’s literature. Her blog was born out of a need to find appropriate re
ading material for her advanced reader and has turned into a place to share interesting books that her family has found. Michelle’s passion about multi-cultural children’s literature stems from the fact that she is raising her girls to be Jewish in a community where they are in a complete minority. In addition, she loves finding books with really strong female characters who stand up to outdated traditions. When not blogging, Michelle writes for a local magazine, teaches Hebrew school, and shares her love of books by being an independent consultant for Usborne Books & More.
Colours of Us: Svenja is an adoptive mom and social worker, originally from Germany, living in South Africa. As a mom of adoptive mom of two little black girls, she always searches for multicultural children’s books that have a positive message, and that do not support stereotypes. She shares her findings on her website, Colours of Us. Svenja is passionate about promoting diversity in children’s literature and toys. She believes that all children deserve to see themselves reflected in the books they read and the toys they play with. Because representation matters!
Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, G+
Discovering the World Through My Son’s Eyes: Frances Evans is a part-time blogger, mommy and wife of a beautiful multicultural familia. Shortly before her child turned 4 yrs. old she started blogging about discovering the world through her son’s eyes, hence the name of her blog. She loves doing things with her son, and became passionate about teaching him to be bilingual, and to identify with his multicultural identity. She writes about heritage, bilingualism, multicultural children’s book and global culture education with lots of hands-on activities and language learning ideas for kids.
Kim Vij is a certified teacher with over 20 years of experience using her Bachelor’s Degree in Early Childhood Education. She moved from the traditional classroom to raise her 3 children and to be an advocate for early childhood education using a much larger platform online. She’s an organizer of the Virtual Book Club for Kids and coauthor of the popular website The Educators’ Spin On It. When she is not creating or pinning ideas for kids for their 1.6 million Pinterestfollowers, you will often find Kim speaking at events, hosting twitter chats or discussing with a friend at a play date about how to help their child learn with developmentally appropriate strategies. Here’s how you can join her weekly virtual book club.
Kim on Twitter, Pinterest, Faceboo
Amanda Boyarshinov is a National Board Certified teacher with oodles of experience in early childhood education. She holds a bachelor’s degree in elementary education and a master’s degree in Reading for grades K-12. You will often find her in her backyard exploring nature with her kids or doing a hands-on science project at the kitchen table. She loves to walk her dog and snuggling up with a good book when she isn’t elbow deep in baking blueberry muffins in the kitchen. She shares educational activities for children ages 0-7 at The Educators’ Spin On It. Here are some of her tips on building a diverse bookshelf.
More about Amanda, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram
Explore Amanda and Kim’s newly published book, 100 Fun & Easy Learning Games for Kids: Teach Reading, Writing, Math and More With Fun Kid Activities.
As a multiculturalism, diversity and inclusion expert, who raises cultural awareness to create social change, Dania helps parents and children understand and
embrace multiculturalism and diversity as a way of creating a peaceful and harmonious society without having to give up their own cultural values and heritage. Dania Santana is a published author and speaker on the subject of multiculturalism. Also a storyteller and multicultural matters advocate, she has made it her mission to educate and empower people all over the US about the importance of a multicultural society, and to show how the contributions of Latinos are crucial to the advancement and success of the United States as a whole.
She is also the mastermind creator behind La Familia Cool fictional world that portraits the new Latino family through multiracial, multicultural and bilingual characters. Dania is also the author of ‘La Familia Cool: El tesoro más valioso / The most valuable treasure’ bilingual children’s book. The picture book was a finalist on the 2016 International Book Awards, and received Honorable Mention from the 2016 San Francisco Book Festival and the 2016 New York Festival.
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube
Becky Flansburg is a blogger and Virtual Assistant from Minnesota who writes about parenthood topics and moms in business. As Project Manager for Multicultural Children’s Book Day, blogger, WAHM, and freelance writer, Becky knows being a mom is The.Best.Thing.Ever and Team Family is #1. Her goal with Franticmommy is to provide tips, ideas, products and services to help other women realize their dreams of business ownership while also sharing the “holy crap!” moments of parenthood and life.
Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter
Jodie Rodriguez has a passion for helping caregivers nurture our youngest readers. As a 
former National Board Certified early-childhood, elementary teacher and administrator, she has worked with thousands of families and educators providing best literacy practices. She lives near St. Louis, Missouri and now stays home with home with her two young sons. She is the creator/founder of Growing Book by Book. A blog dedicated to helping caregivers nurture our youngest readers. You will find book lists, book related activities and literacy tips and tricks for kids ages 0-8.
Pinterest | Facebook | Twitter
I’m Charnaie, and I love to read! In my previous life (before children) I used to read 20 – 30 books a year. Now I have to work at it to read two (adult) books a month, 
unless you count all the books I read to my children and such, in which case I read hundreds of books a year. Since children love repetition many of the books are just the same ones over and over and over (Ha ha!) I’m a Computer Programmer by education. I have over 15 years of experience in the Information Technology field. I have both a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Computer Science/Information Technology. I’m also a Distinguished Toastmaster something which I’m very proud of.I like connecting people with books they’ll love. I enjoy both fiction and nonfiction books. I read mostly genre non-fiction, fiction (mysteries and sci-fi) and young adult fiction, but I do branch out beyond that occasionally.
In nonfiction I love biographies and memoirs, personal development, history, Christian living, and parenting books, but I don’t limit myself to those categories; I’m very willing to read about other topics if the writing is engaging.
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, website.
Melissa Taylor, MA, is an education expert and Pinterest influencer as well as a mother, teacher, and freelance writer. She writes an award-winning learning blog, Imagination Soup and freelances for publications online and in print, including Sylvan Learning, Random House, USA Today Health, The Writer, and Scholastic Parent and Child. Connect with Melissa on Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter and Google+.
Becky Morales started Kid World Citizen as a way to share ideas from her classroom 
and activities that she did with her kids. Becky an adoptive mom and the cultures in her family’s household include Mexico, China, Ethiopia, and African-American, but has expanded the blog to include cultures from around the world. Becky loves meeting other globally-minded parents and teachers and sharing ideas to expose kids to world cultures. She has also written a book to help teachers and homeschoolers increase global learning with their kids (and in it there is a booklist of over 300+ excellent multicultural titles for elementary learners!).
Facebook, Pinterest, G+, Twitter, Instagram
The Logonauts: Katie is a life-long reader and enjoys ensnaring others in the web of life-long reading. As a traveler, photographer, and former archaeologist, 
she has visited four five continents (honeymoon in Morocco!), numerous countries, and 41 of the 50 US States. She loves introducing her students to the wider world and fostering their excitement about other countries and cultures. Logonaut was a word invented by Katie and three of her pre-service teacher colleagues while creating a unit on vocabulary-building and word roots. It has as its roots logo (Greek for word) and naut (Greek for ship or nautae, Latin for sailor): word sailor. In their estimation then, a logonaut is someone who sails on the sea of words and shares an appreciation and love of the power of words and language.
Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, G+
MaryAnne was raised in five countries on three continents. She currently lives in California with her husband and their four children. MaryAnne blogs at Mama Smiles about building a rewarding family life through mindful parenting and educational and creative family activities. MaryAnne has a Masters in education and Ph.D. in medicine. She enjoys freelance writing and photography.
Connect with Mama Smiles on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, G+
Multicultural Kid Blogs is a supportive community which brings together parents, educators, bloggers, writers and artists from across the world. Our mission is to inspire and support parents, caregivers and educators raising the next generation of global citizens through arts, activities, crafts, food, language, and love. We do this by creating educational and parenting content which celebrates global cultures, languages and belief systems and by promoting diversity in all its forms while recognizing our common concerns and dreams for our children.
Facebook, G+, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram
Randomly Reading: Alex Baugh is a former 4th grade classroom teacher and homeschooler with one Kiddo. She is also on an children’s book award granting committee, where they read over 6,000 books a year. Alex’s experience has made her very aware of the responsibility we all have when it comes to the multicultural content of children’s literature and she shares that in every blog post she writes for Randomly Reading.
Twitter @randomlyreading, Facebook, Pinterest, Google+
Spanish Playground
Jennifer Brunk writes about teaching Spanish to children on her blog Spanish Playground. She focuses on communicative teaching and authentic language materials. 
Jennifer raised her three children speaking English and Spanish and has been teaching Spanish to young world citizens for over twenty years. The challenge of finding quality resources inspired her to create Spanish Playground, a place teachers and parents can turn to for support, strategies and materials.
Social Media Links: Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, Instagram
free educational materials for parents, teachers, homeschools, libraries, and scout groups to use. Wise Owl Factory has been providing educational materials online since 2008. She lives in Minnesota and when she is not enjoying time with her grandchildren and creating lessons is involved in a local writing group, and loves taking time out in nature to observe her favorite bird, owls.